Google releases local-first meeting note-taker Google AI Edge Foresight

Google's new offline meeting note-taker

Google has released Google AI Edge Foresight, a new local-first competitor to AI note-taker Granola. The Mac app can work completely offline, using the on-device EmbeddingGemma 2 model with 740 million parameters to capture meeting notes across apps, including notes from in-person meetings.

The app follows a familiar split-screen layout, letting users write shorthand notes on one side while AI-generated notes appear on the other. Like Granola, it allows manual note-taking during transcription, and users can review the full transcript or chat with a Gemma 4-powered assistant to get answers.

Knowledge base and offline focus

Users can upload documents including PDFs, Google Docs, Microsoft Office formats, plain text, Markdown, and web bookmarks to build a knowledge base. The app can then answer questions in real time when a point related to that data comes up in a meeting.

According to Google's FAQ page, the app is optimized for Apple Silicon and can work entirely offline, meaning meeting notes remain usable while traveling or in places without an internet connection.

A crowded market

The release follows an experimental AI-powered dictation tool Google launched earlier in April, which worked with local models but never reached mainstream usage. The new note-taker may primarily showcase the capabilities of Google's Gemma series of offline models, though the company could also release a consumer version that works across video calling apps through its Gemini apps using cloud models.

The meeting note-taker space is competitive and crowded. In recent months, dictation company Wispr and scheduling company Calendly released their own notetakers, while productivity startup Superhuman, formerly Grammarly, acquired YC-backed notetaker Fathom last month.

Sources: Techcrunch